Last week we discussed the possibility of UBS leaving Stamford, Connecticut, where the bank built the largest trading floor in the world back in the 90′s. While their lease is not up until 2015, talks with developers like Larry Silverstein, about a possible deal at 3 World Trade Center, which conveniently has 5 trading floors located in “Tower 3,” have recently moved from very casual to semi-casual, and considering that management is of the opinion that the firm’s recent issues are merely a matter of no one wanting to work in CT, the idea that they would leave is at least somewhat plausible. On Friday, a bunch of Stamfordians were asked how they’d feel about living in a city in which UBS didn’t exist and the responses ranged from confused to angry to devastated (on the flip side, one employee deemed the potential move and $300/month he’d save “awesome” and another commented “What’s the big deal? So we move out, and a nice big Costco moves in. Life goes on.”) According to Stamford Mayor Michael Pavia, however, the tears are for naught. Continue reading »
Archive for June 2011
Danielle Chiesi’s Lawyers Argue She Shimmied Her Way Into Inside Information Out Of A Need To Please, Not Greed
By Bess Levin
Since they were arrested in late 2009 and during his 8-week trial, one thing we’ve learned about Raj Rajaratnam gal-pal Danielle Chieis is that as the information she passed to the Galleon founder was the best of the best, she was one of his most valuable tipsters. To be sure, guys like Anil Kumar and Rajat Gupta gave Raj good stuff too, but Chiesi had a leg up on the other tipsters because she “used her sexuality to build sources at male-dominated tech companies.” Executives were apparently powerless to the allure of her “tight red suit with red fishnet stockings” and once they saw her “suggestive” dance moves it was game over. Chiesi had affairs with guys like IBM’s Bob Moffatt, who was more than happy to tip her off (not knowing he was just being used though, Moffat, who cried at least two times in public over Chieis, has since vowed to never open his heart to another woman again, besides his wife), and following coitus, DC would pass the info to Raj. According to Chiesi’s lawyers, who are attempting to keep her out of jail (she pleaded guilty earlier this year), there’s a good reason their clients a) slept with these married men and b) engaged in insider trading. She was a people pleaser. Continue reading »
It is implausible that every one of Rajaratnam’s sophisticated investors were in the dark. Yet the law says that, unlike the Madoff investors, they bear no responsibility for ignoring red flags. On the contrary: They are being rewarded for looking the other way…The phrase I find myself muttering a lot these days is: “There oughta be a law.”…The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that there ought to be a law that says that if a fund manager’s “edge” is insider trading, his investors should have to pay a price, too. Maybe then, they’d be less willing to look the other way when their fund manager starts doing things he shouldn’t. [NYT]
$$$ Dimon’s Critique of Bank Regulation Draws Rave Review, according to Charlie Gasparino, who cites the fact that spokesman for Bernanke “would not deny that the Fed chairman agrees with Dimon” re: his comments last week as evidence (FBN)
$$$ Obama: ‘I would resign‘ in Weiner’s situation (MSNBC via HNM)
$$$ Berkowitz Leads Stock Pickers Hitting Bottom (Bloomberg)
$$$ S&P slashes Greece to lowest, says default likely (Reuters)
$$$ Majority of Experts Predict Debt Ceiling Deal (Fiscal Times)
$$$ Rosenberg Sees `99% Chance‘ of U.S. Recession by 2012 (Bloomberg)
$$$ Goldman and Clive Capital to launch commods index (FT)
$$$ BofA May Post $27 Billion More Housing Losses, Bernstein Says (Bloomberg) Continue reading »
Head trader and Wharton grad
Remember Gryphon Financial? To recap, it was a scam run by a bunch of guys who called themselves Kenneth Marsh, Baldwin Anderson, Robert Anthony Budion, Jeanne Lada, 44 and James T. Levier. Those names won’t mean anything to the investors who got taken for a ride for more than $17.5 million, because the firm used fake names, claiming it was run by president “Michael Warren” and vice-president “Kenneth Maseka” (the latter fictional character’s pedigree included degrees from Harvard, Oxford, Columbia and Wharton and job with Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs). Other (awesome) facts about the firm that turned out to be untrue included:
* An office building “in the heart of the financial world at 110 Wall St., 11th Floor.” The actual office can be found at 3767 Victory Blvd., next to a martial arts school and a bakery.
* Props from George Soros, who is quoted as saying: “Alone, the Gryphon Financial are incredible, together they are unstoppable.”
* A ten-man trading desk (which Gryphon’s newsletter describes as being key members of its “hardcore business”) Continue reading »
David Einhorn Not The Only Hedge Fund Manager To Own A Piece Of A New York Pro-Baseball Team
By Bess Levin
…if we’re counting owning a team’s parking lots and garages as owning a piece of the team and I think we are! Continue reading »
One Democratic financier invited to this month’s dinner, who asked for anonymity because he did not want to anger the White House, said it was ironic that the same president who once criticized bankers as “fat cats” would now invite them to dine at Daniel, where the six-course tasting menu runs to $195 a person. The donor declined the invitation. [NYT, earlier]
Earlier this morning, Dick Bové sent out a slightly defensive note to clients, regarding an appearance by writer William Cohan on Bloomberg TV. Dick wrote: “Bloomberg TV did a segment in which it claims that I made statements about the [Goldman Sachs] SEC investigation and that author Bill Cohen states that ‘I am full of hot air.’ Further, Bloomberg and Cohan argue that Goldman ‘got to Bove’.” Richard went on to say that this “getting to” business was bull shit, as Goldman Sachs has not paid for his services “for years,” for reason lost on him (“the company is not a customer and for whatever reason it will not pay for my research”). We hadn’t seen the segment but we Dick seemed pretty miffed, perhaps justifiably, as the comments did seem moderately insulting. Apparently someone was feeling slightly sensitive this morning because while the words “Goldman got to Bové” did exit Bloomberg TV anchor Deirdre Bolton’s mouth (Cohan repeated them but made sure to use his hands to make it clear he was quoting DB), and for which he can be pissed, at no time during the program did anyone say anything about Bové being “full of hot air.”
The tapes are here for Dick to review when he’s feeling better and is ready to come out of his room. Continue reading »
Former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra pleaded not guilty Monday in a federal case where he’s accused of embezzling money from a bankruptcy estate. An out-of-sorts Dykstra appeared in a Los Angeles federal courtroom where he entered his plea while flanked by a new attorney, a deputy federal public defender. His previous lawyer, Mark Werksman, wouldn’t comment about why he no longer represented Dykstra, but noted a judge has declared the one-time baseball star indigent. Federal prosecutors contend Dykstra, 48, sold or destroyed more than $400,000 worth of items from an $18.5 million mansion without permission of a bankruptcy trustee. When U.S. Magistrate Judge John McDermott asked Dykstra if he understood the charges, the ex-big leaguer gave an incoherent response. “I don’t understand it, but I understand them,” said Dykstra, who appeared dazed. [AP]
Nate Thoma is 33 year-old with “scruffy beard” who lives in Queens and sometimes wears plaid shirts. He’s also a sometime day trader who has “about $500,000 in investments” and in fall 2008, saw his investment in Washington Mutual wiped out after regulators seized the bank. Thoma spent “weeks in front of his Scottrade account, trying to figure out how to recoup money he had lost” and after studying WaMu’s capital structure “saw an opportunity to make it back.” Continue reading »
And the feeling is mutual. Continue reading »
